[Memories] came back to run through his mind like a reel of color film —Carlos Baker

(I am) clean forgotten, as a dead man out of mind —Book of Common Prayer

Could be forgotten as quickly and painlessly as a doubting of Jesus or a fear of death from the measles —Peter Taylor

[Memory] drifted into my mind like a bit of weed carried in a current and caught there, floating but fixed, refusing to be carried away —Katherine Anne Porter

Eventually I thought about him [a once close friend] only once a week or so, as if he were a relative who had died years ago —Richard Burgin

Faded memories worn as a buffalo head a nickel —A. D. Winans

Felt old memories stir in him like dead leaves —Helen Hudson

Fettered to a pack of useless memories like a living person to a corpse —Ouida

Follow one after the next like cars out on the street, memories, there is just no stopping them —Tony Ardizzone

For a person blessed with a memory as full of holes as an Iranscam scenario, life can be a continuous state of astonishment —Donald Henahan

Henahan uses this simile to introduce his comments about a revival of the musical, South Pacific. The editorial blurb writer used a simile from the musical’s lyrics, “As Corny as Kansas in August” to highlight the article.

Forgotten as quickly as warm days in winter or cool days in summer —Ellen Glasgow

Forgotten like a station passed through on a train —Elizabeth Spencer

(Be) forgotten like spilt wine —Algernon Charles Swinburne

Gather memories like dry twigs, thorns and thistles —Yehuda Amichai

The ghosts of our remembrances throng around us like dead leaves whirled in the autumn wind —Jerome K. Jerome

His memory could work like the slinging of a noose to catch a wild pony —Eudora Welty

His memory lifted its skirts … and hurried convulsively, like an old lady picking her way barefoot across a shingly beach —Noël Coward

His memory was something like his appendix, a vestigial repository —John Cheever

(He never forgets a face.) His mind is like a video camera —Hie Nastase

If only there could be an invention that bottled up memory, like a scent —Daphne du Maurier

The image [of remembered scene] … is like a photograph on my memory —Richard Maynard

An incident would suddenly crop up in her memory, like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle that seemed to have come from the wrong box —Mary McCarthy

It isn’t a thing one forgets overnight, like losing a pencil —Mary Stewart

It was as though an endless series of hangars had been shaken ajar in the air base of his memory and from each, like a young wasp emerging from its cell, arose the memory of a plane —Ralph Ellison

Like a dull actor … I have forgot my part —William Shakespeare

Memories are like books; a few live in our hearts through life, and the rest, like the bills we pay, are read, and then forgotten —Gerald Bendall

Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid —Ugo Betti

Memories … began to play across the surface of his mind like movies on a screen —Richard McKenna

Memories bursting in her mind like forsythia buds on the first warm day of the year —B. S. Johnson

Memories … floated like gossamer through her thoughts —Frank Swinnerton

Memories … like worms eating into the flesh —William Golding

Memories lurk like dustballs at the back of drawers —Jay Mclnerney

Memories … no two sets exactly the same, like fingerprints —Daphne Merkin

Memories of embarrassing things he had done and said, of mistakes he had made, buzzed and flitted in his mind like annoying little gnats —Dan Wakefield

Memories of the bad covered the good, as snow covers grass in the fall —Ann Jasperson

Memories … pierced by moments of brightness, like flashes of lightning —Yasunari Kawabata

Memories [when a lot of people one knows die] return to life as grass grows on graves —Lael Tucker Wertenbaker

Memories swept over her like a strong wind on dark waters —Carl Sandburg

Memories turned up like bills you thought you’d never have to pay —Hugh Leonard

In Leonard’s play, Da, the memories turning up like bills are evoked as a character sorts through family memorabilia.

Memory … as good as a bulldog’s handshake —Loren D. Estleman

In Estleman’s mystery novel, Every Brilliant Eye, the character with the bulldog-like memory is a policeman.

Memory broke, like an old clock —Karl Shapiro

Memory can be like a dream, cause and effect non-existent —Gordon Weaver

Memory … crawling to the surface like a fat worm after rain —Harvey Swados

The memory … fell upon him like a weight of black water —Willa Cather

The memory [of a man] glimmered in her thoughts like a bright thread in the pattern of a tapestry —Mazo De La Roche

Memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. (Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadow of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves) —Jerome K. Jerome

Memory is as full of chimerical as forgetfulness, deceptive as any other work of the imagination —Madison Smart Bell

Memory is like a noisy intruder being thrown out of the concert hall … he will hang on the door and continue to disturb the concert —Theodore Reik, Saturday Review, January 11, 1958

Memory, is like a purse, if it’s too full, it can’t be shut, and everything will drop out of it —Thomas Fuller

Memory is like the moon … it has its new, its full, and its wane —Duchess of Newcastle

The word ‘hath’ has been modernized to ‘has.’

The memory is salty, like sweat, like the emissions of love-making, like the sea —Lael Tucker Wertenbaker

Memory, like a juggler, tosses its colored balls into the light, and again receives them into darkness —Conrad Aiken

Memory … like an old musical box it will lie silent for long years; then a mere nothing, a jerk, a tremor, will start the spring, and from beneath its decent covering of dust it will talk to us of forgotten passion and desire —Thomas Burke

A memory like a powerful microchip —Anon

A memory like a telephone directory —William Mcllvanney

A memory like flypaper —Nora Johnson

Memory, like sleep, has powers which dreams obey —William Wordsworth

Memory, like women, is usually unfaithful —Spanish proverb

Depending upon who’s talking, the comparison would be as appropriate if attributed to men.

The memory of our lost friends is welcome to us like the bitter taste in wine that is very old —Michel de Montaigne

The memory of past favors is like a rainbow, bright, vivid, and beautiful, but it soon fades away —Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Memory [of something unpleasant] … pokes at him like a nightmare in the womb —T. Coraghessan Boyle

Memory returned like fire —Frank Swinnerton

Memory’s like an athlete; keep it in training; take it for cross-country runs —James Hilton

The [unpleasant] memory … stuck like a fish-hook in her brain —Stefan Zweig

Memory transparent as a dream you strain to recall —Harryette Mullen

Memory unwound within me like a roll of film in which I played no part —Heinrich Böll

A memory, very beautiful and delicate like a flavor or a perfume —Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

retrieval - the cognitive operation of accessing information in memory; "my retrieval of people's names is very poor"

recollection, reminiscence, recall - the process of remembering (especially the process of recovering information by mental effort); "he has total recall of the episode"

recognition, identification - the process of recognizing something or someone by remembering; "a politician whose recall of names was as remarkable as his recognition of faces"; "experimental psychologists measure the elapsed time from the onset of the stimulus to its recognition by the observer"

connexion, association, connection - the process of bringing ideas or events together in memory or imagination; "conditioning is a form of learning by association"

retrospection - memory for experiences that are past; "some psychologists tried to contrast retrospection and introspection"

3.

memory - the power of retaining and recalling past experience; "he had a good memory when he was younger"

virtual memory, virtual storage - (computer science) memory created by using the hard disk to simulate additional random-access memory; the addressable storage space available to the user of a computer system in which virtual addresses are mapped into real addresses

Quotations"The man with a good memory remembers nothing because he forgets nothing" [Augusto Roa Bastos I The Supreme]"The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust" [Elizabeth Bowen]"Our memories are card-indexes consulted, and then put back in disorder by authorities whom we do not control" [Cyril Connolly The Unquiet Grave]"We find a little of everything in our memory; it is a sort of pharmacy, a sort of chemical laboratory, in which our groping hand may come to rest, now on a sedative drug, now on a dangerous poison" [Marcel Proust Remembrance of Things Past]

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